This post was published long before the Mists of Pandara Expansion.
The tips and techniques explained here may be outdated.

Tapping in protest

Leveling is going well.. I should hit 80 sometime this week (maybe as soon as tonight.. but I wouldn’t hold my breath).

(Reposting pic because it still makes me laugh)

I got a new rank of Life Tap… and I’m finding that occasionally.. when I tap.. right afterwards I gulp in surprise about how much life is gone. It’s no longer at the dependable level. It’s changed and odd and different.. and I’m not sure I like it.

I may start downranking in protest. I mean geez, I had almost a year to get used to the last tap. It was known.. dependable.. -normal-. Now I’ve got to get used to this new amount. It’s just too much. Maybe it will be better when I’m uber and have tons of stamina.. right now .. it just feels too big.

3 comments to Tapping in protest

Technically, no, they didn’t get rid of downranking. You can still do it.. It used to be you’d cast a lower rank heal for lower mana to do a lower base heal but get a nice amount of +healing tagged onto it. What they changed is they made a lower rank heal actually cost more in mana than a higher rank heal. So it’s no longer advantageous.

In -this- case it’s the same either way. A lifetap casts as much mana as it returns in life regardless of the rank. So if I use a lower level tap, I lose a lower amount of health and gain a corresponding lower amount of mana.

Technically the higher rank is the better one to cast. 1 tap costs 1 GCD whereas 2 taps cost 2 GCD. The GCD is a loss in DPS technically. BUT what I’m finding is that the highest rank tap is only useful when I have lost a higher amount of mana.. and then I have to have a higher buffer of health.

It -could- also be that my muscles are conditioned to hit tap twice… and that’s one-too-many times.

Fortunetly for affliction locks the higher rank will never be an issues with all the health return they are getting from Siphone Life (+glyph), Haunt, Fel Armor and the good ol’ trusty Drain Life. Destro and Demo locks are the ones that will need to worry about this more considering that Healers will be conserving their mana even more now. Lower ranks are indeed a smart move specially in AoE heavy fights and such, you never know when that Big Boom will take you last bit of life away.